ALBERT: I can't see the bottom.
I wanna go there.
GUIILLERMO: Yeah, let's do it.
ALBERT: This is where it's at.
I mean it's technology meets adventure,
meets the frontier of the unknown right here.
I'm about to go into the Maya underworld.
Oh, it's so dark in here.
I think this is the craziest thing I've ever done.
Deep within this remote jungle cavern,
startling evidence of Maya ritual sacrifice.
I'm Albert Lin. Engineer...
There's a forgotten world down there.
Lost cities hidden in the jungle.
And National Geographic explorer.
The frontier of the Maya world is actually right under our feet.
I'm on a mission to uncover the secrets of one of the
world's most mysterious ancient civilizations...
the Maya.
And right now, technology is revealing a whole new story.
KING [over TV]: New technology reveals that ancient civilization in
Central America may have been much more complex than archaeologists believed.
ALBERT: In 2018, National Geographicbroke the news of an incredible discovery.
[speaking French].
ALBERT: Thatcaptivated the entire world.
And I was right there to see it.
Wow!
Revealed from the sky.
TOM: This is the most important development
in Maya archaeology in 100 years.
ALBERT: And on the ground.
Ah, it gives you like chills up your back.
Using 'LiDAR' technology that can see through dense jungle like an X-ray.
Okay, you ready to see it without the trees?
More than 60,000 man-made structures brought to light
in an incredible new treasure map.
ARCHAEOLOGIST: Very narrow.
ALBERT: Now, armed with the new map...
[speaking Spanish]
ALBERT: Some of the world's most intrepid archaeologists...
LAILA: It's going to be dangerous.
ALBERT: Sure.
Are taking on the jungle.
FRANCISCO: Bhanny, there is a painted pot.
It's got an inscription.
ALBERT: In search of its secrets.
FRANCISCO: We have a skeleton.
ALBERT: All on a quest
to rewrite the astonishing story of the Maya.
The world of the Maya, remote and mysterious.
All this wild jungle was home to a vast civilization,
the Maya.
That ancient world has been lost for centuries,
but today, for the first time, we can see through the trees.
And what we're finding, it's mind-blowing.
This time, I'm on a mission to uncover the strange world of Maya ritual.
I'll be following the very first excavation of a remote cluster of ancient pyramids
and revealing victims of human sacrifice.
FRANCISCO: It could be the top of somebody's head.
ALBERT: I'll be diving into the dangerous realm of the ancestors.
I'm about to go into the Maya underworld.
Are you kidding me?
There's a whole world under here.
And seeing how a newly discovered jungle cave was once a portal to
the ancient Maya underworld.
LAILA: Oh, Dennis, there's a bone here!
ALBERT: Discoveries that are revealing new evidence of Maya ritual,
and the world of their gods.
Deep in the jungles of Northern Guatemala, scientist Laila Donn and geographer
Duncan Cook, are hunting for secrets of the Maya.
They are heading out from base camp, close to an ancient city called El Zotz.
Their mission, to investigate the base of a remote mountain
that the new LiDAR treasure map suggests
might contain the entrance to an undiscovered cave.
DUNCAN: The LiDAR has identified quite a number of interesting sites up there,
which show great promise I think for potential caves.
ALBERT: The Maya occupied a vast region of Central America,
across what is now Guatemala and Southern Mexico,
as well as parts of Belize and Honduras.
Over more than 2,000 years the Maya tamed the jungle,
creating cities of dazzling sophistication.
But there was also a dark side of blood,
and human sacrifice to thegods that lived in the sky
and to the mysterious underworld beneath the ground.
Base camp at El Zotz.
LAILA: Can I ask you to double check?
I think Duncan and I heard different co-ordinates.
ALBERT: Okay.
LAILA: Just for northern.
ALBERT: Before the LiDAR map no-one had any idea that this mystery cave existed at all.
TOM: When we got the LiDAR data over El Zotz, the geology is revealed in a way that
we've never been able to see before.
ALBERT: Site director and National Geographic explorer, Tom Garrison,
has brought in cave explorers, Laila and Duncan to verify the new data.
TOM: I was thinking this area north of El Zotz,
maybe this could be a cave zone.
Yeah.
DUNCAN: So we've just come in from Belize and we've seen many cave sites there
located near Maya settlements.
It will be great to see really, won't it, if there's these strong links between
the underworld and the surface world here.
LAILA: Yeah, maybe we'll find out more about this answer to this question.
TOM: Yeah.
Now you guys just need to go find them.
DUNCAN: Alright. TOM: Yeah.
DUNCAN: Are we ready?
ALBERT: The plan: guided by the LiDAR map, locate the cave,
and then enter it for the very first time.
LAILA: These caves, there's nothing published on them, they're not mapped,
they're complete unknowns.
So that really leaves this huge knowledge gap.
DUNCAN: Yes, here we are.
LAILA: Oh, sweet.
DENNIS: Let's get to work and see.
DUNCAN: Yeah.
LAILA: Oh, this rock is very loose.
ALBERT: Right now, no-one knows whether this cave was ever visited by the Maya.
Finding any evidence of ritual activity would be a remarkable discovery.
DUNCAN: Alright, we're geared up, shall we go in?
LAILA: Yeah. DUNCAN: Alright.
LAILA: Do it.
DUNCAN: Let's get in a bit further, check this out.
ALBERT: Almost immediately, the cave narrows, dangerously.
DUNCAN: So a small, just like a small entrance cavern here.
Okay.
Now drop your back a little, that's a real tight squeeze.
There you go.
It's amazing to think in that in all likelihood we're probably the first
human beings who have even been through these caves in 1,000 years.
LAILA: Yeah, it's absolutely amazing.
ALBERT: Only if the team finds any remains will theylaunch a full exploration.
But then, 50 feet into the cave...
LAILA: Look at this.
DUNCAN: What have you got?
LAILA: This is, it's a large piece of ceramic.
It looks like it has a nice slip on it, it's a nice reddish color.
DUNCAN: A lot of the features are still intact.
Excellent stuff.
LAILA: Yeah, super exciting. Let's see what else we've got.
DUNCAN: Alright, let's keep going.
LAILA: Wow, here's another one.
DUNCAN: Oh, yeah.
LAILA: It looks like it's the rim of a pot.
This is a phenomenal find.
ALBERT: The Maya often broke pottery as a form of sacrifice.
So this could be a sign of ritual offering.
DUNCAN: It's entirely feasible that the Maya ventured down these tunnels,
typically for kind of ritual purposes.
We see this in other parts of the Maya world.
LAILA: Yeah.
DUNCAN: But yet not around here, we've discovered no evidence of this.
LAILA: That's right.
DUNCAN: So this is a real first.
LAILA: Any caver in the world would be thrilled about
discovering something like this.
ALBERT: Until the new LiDAR treasure map, this cave was completely unknown.
Its secret contents undiscovered.
The map is a result of an ambitious aerial survey
using lasers mounted on aircraft to
chart a landscape hidden beneath 800 square miles of dense jungle.
Called the Pacunum LiDAR Initiative, it involves a consortium
of international and Guatemalan experts.
And the results are simply astonishing.
From above you can see nothing but trees, but LiDAR can take the trees away,
laying bare an entire civilization.
In all, more than 60,000 ancient structures created by the Maya.
In San Diego, where I research,
I've been given special access to the new data.
And two of the project leaders Marcello Canuto and Tom Garrison
are joining me to explore it on a massive scale.
Okay, are you ready to see it without the trees?
TOM: Let's see it.
ALBERT: Let's do it.
Wow.
MARCELLO: Wow.
TOM: Yeah, this is amazing.
ALBERT: The map is said to completely rewrite the story of the Maya.
TOM: It's a scale of discovery that it just blows everyone's mind.
ALBERT: And it's got to transform the fundamental understanding
of this entire civilization.
TOM: Well, we're definitely talking about a period that
is pre-LiDAR and post-LiDAR in Maya archaeology.
And everything that we know now is going to be different from what we knew before.
It's that big of a change.
ALBERT: Incredible discoveries are being made right across the survey area.
It's revealing palaces and pyramids, and the great Maya cities as never before.
But the LiDAR is also revealing some very different features.
Including our newly identified mystery cave near El Zotz,
where Laila Donn and Duncan Cook are exploring for the very first time.
LAILA: Who knows what we'll find.
I mean so far there's no end to this tunnel.
ALBERT: It's taken half an hour to go just a 100 feet.
But as they hunt for more treasures...
LAILA: Ooh, wowsers.
Oh, man, the floor has fallen.
DUNCAN: Keep away from the edge there.
ALBERT: They encounter a dangerous collapse.
LAILA: Oh, it looks like it fell into another level.
Oh, my gosh!
ALBERT: Laila and Duncan's exploration is brought to an abrupt halt.
DUNCAN: You've got this big collapsed section that kind of the whole floor has
collapsed down into the lower levels as well too.
ALBERT: Unless they can deal with the collapsed rock,
they'll have to end their mission.
DUNCAN: We've got these priceless Maya ceramicshards scattered everywhere.
We still didn't see all of them.
We've got to start mapping further into the cave, see how far it goes.
ALBERT: The local support team comes up with a plan,
in the shape of a quickly improvised ladder.
With light beginning to fade, Laila heads back inside.
LAILA: Can you get it around those two big boulders out there?
It's a stiff 10 or 12 foot long ladder that's being moved around all these rocks,
and it's pretty stuffy inhere, pretty stuffy and warm.
Alright, that's the point of last contact with the surface.
ALBERT: For safety, someone must stay at the entrance to
raise the alarm if there's an accident.
This time it's Duncan's turn.
DUNCAN: It's a little bit nerve-wracking being out here this whole time
and just waiting for the team to come back.
ALBERT: Deep inside the cave,and isolated in remote jungle,
the team needs to be back at camp before dark.
LAILA: At this moment we have 10 minutes, maybe 15,
to check out this new side, Dennis.
You know, if it gets dark it's going to be dangerous.
DENNIS: Sure.
All that's left for us to do is to lower the ladder down into this collapsed area.
ALBERT: The jungle ladder's in place, but the collapse is a clue to dangerous
instabilities in the limestone.
DENNIS: Let's just leave it here...
LAILA: Whoa.
Yeah, so there's going to be like a bunch of loose stuff here,
so everyone really, really careful.
ALBERT: Loose rocks navigated,
Laila and fellow caver, Dennis, push deeper.
LAILA: Whoa, wowsers.
ALBERT: Then, a 150 feet in...
LAILA: Yeah, this is crazy.
ALBERT: The tunnel opens out into a wide cavern.
The perfect location for ancient ritual.
LAILA: It's really impressive.
Looking at this hill you would have no idea that this is what's inside.
Have you ever seen anything like this?
DENNIS: No.
ALBERT: And there are more finds.
LAILA: There's ceramic down here again in this dark layer.
ALBERT: And then...
LAILA: Oh jeez, there's a bone here.
There's a bone, there's a bunch of ceramic mixed in.
ALBERT: Until this cave is fully investigated it's impossible to tell if the
bone is animal or human, and whether all these remains
were washed here from the entrance by flood water,
or if the Maya once came into this deep cavern to carry out rituals.
LAILA: Gotta go now.
We're running late and running out of daylight.
We're definitely out of time.
DENNIS: We found a large cavern with cultural remains.
DUNCAN: Fantastic. DENNIS: Yeah.
LAILA: I mean there's a bone. DUNCAN: Animal?
DENNIS: In context with ceramics though.
DUNCAN: Amazing work.
LAILA: Yeah.
ALBERT: Discovered by LiDAR, this is now an important new archaeological site
in need of further investigation.
LAILA: It's very exciting, because there have been no caves in this area found with
cultural remains in them, so that makes this really unique and really exciting
for cavers, geologists, archaeologists, everyone.
ALBERT: Up here in the sky I feel I'm flying through the domain of the Maya gods.
High above the jungle that was home to the living Maya,
and beneath that the mysterious underworld
that they believed was home to deities and the spirits of their ancestors.
It's a world that's still full of secrets.
The jungle seems to go on forever.
But I'm going to keep going to see just how far the Maya world reaches.
I'm heading 300 miles north of Guatemala to Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula,
another part of the ancient Maya world.
A region entirely riddled with caves and underground rivers.
We're literally just a stone's throw away from a major highway and already
we're into this wild jungle.
What's wild about it is that the last frontier of the Maya world might
be hidden just in plain sight right beneath our feet.
This region is home to around 6,000 water-filled caves, called cenotes.
And it turns out that many are connected deep underground.
This is one of the entrances that we've found so far,
to the largest underwater cave system in the world.
This cenote joins the Sac-Actun cave system,
which runs for more than 200 miles beneath the jungle.
And it's almost completely uncharted.
I want to know what's going on in the Maya underworld.
I want to go and see how technology can bring this world and the story in this
world back to the surface.
For the Maya, cenotes were a vital source of water.
And they were also sacred.
Entrances to the underworld.
The Maya would make offerings to the rain god Chaac,
throwing sacrificial human victims into the dark watery depths.
Dive archaeologist and National Geographic explorer, Guillermo de Anda,
is masterminding a large scale investigation of Mexico's cenotes.
And today I'm going insearch of evidence of ancient rituals for myself.
This is all a cave under us right now?
ALBERT: The cenote we're looking for is not easily found.
Hidden in the jungle its entrance is just a few feet across.
Wow.
I can't see the bottom.
ALBERT: I can totally get it.
So you walk along, you're in this forest and then all of a sudden here you are,
standing on top of this black hole into nothingness.
GUILLERMO: Yeah.
ALBERT: You can kind of get a sense of why they would have thought
this was in to another world.
I want to go there.
GUILLERMO: Yeah, let's do it.
ALBERT: Getting in means a 60 foot rappel to reach a water-filled cavern.
This is where it's at.
I mean it's technology meets adventure, meets the frontier of the unknown right here.
ALBERT: With my gear on and the rope team ready, it's time to go in.
Alright, here we go.
Let's start.
TEAM MEMBER: Okay.
ALBERT: Wow.
I feel like I'm going through the threshold here.
Wow.
It's huge down here.
Are you kidding me?
I think this is the craziest thing I've ever done.
ALBERT: Rappelling down, I'm descending into the Maya underworld.
Okay.
It almost feels like we're in the basin of the world.
You would never imagine when you're standing above
that there's a whole world under here.
Guillermo has explored this remote cenote before,
but for me it's a whole new experience.
ALBERT: I'm ready.
As we dive down, the light quickly fades
into complete darkness.
It's dangerous and forbidding.
But at the same time magical.
And enticing.
And then out of the darkness
my torchlight catches something.
An ancient water jug perfectly preserved.
With 40 minutes of oxygen left in my tank I'm determined to
push deeper in search of more treasures.
But ritual activity was not only confined to the underworld.
For the Maya the gods were ever-present forces
with the power to make rain, bring sun
or ensure a bountiful harvest from the earth.
Back in Guatemala, 300 miles to the south,
archaeologist and National Geographicexplorer,
Francisco Estrada Belli, is investigating another newly discovered site.
He's exploring the jungle close to a small ancient city called Witzna.
So the goal is to excavate these new pyramids that we identified in the LiDAR.
These are all completely new.
ALBERT: The new LiDAR map has revealed thousands of new sites.
But Francisco's discovery is one of the most intriguing of them all.
Now he's joining me in San Diego to explore the new data.
FRANCISCO: Yeah, so you look at this, it's just lots of trees, right?
ALBERT: Yeah, well,let's get rid of the trees.
Without LiDAR, the area around Witzna is nothing but jungle wilderness.
But take away the trees and high on a mountain ridge something appears,
an isolated pyramid.
FRANCISCO: Well, you know, from the LiDAR it just looks so odd,
because there aren't that many isolated pyramids like this one.
For this region this is very unusual.
ALBERT: So you've got this place built on top of the highest mountain in the area.
What's special about it?
FRANCISCO: Because it's on the tallest hill in the entire region it's probably one of
the most important pyramids.
ALBERT: Maya pyramids were built to mimic mountains,
reaching up into the world of the gods.
Unlike Egyptian pyramids, they were meant to be climbed.
Their pinnacles scenes of blood-letting and human sacrifice.
Did the Maya have a thing with mountain tops, a way to connect to gods?
FRANCISCO: Actually, yes.
The mountains were the residing places of gods and ancestors.
And so the more important agod, the bigger the mountain.
TOM: And pyramids themselves are built mountains.
FRANCISCO: Yes.
TOM: The Maya name these structures using this word
"weets", meaning mountain.
So we'll see a pyramid is given a name and it's called a mountain,
and it is also a home for someone sacred, a deceased king.
ALBERT: Most Maya pyramids are found in the center of cities.
But Francisco's newly discovered pyramid is different.
It's far from any city center, built on top of a mountain,
which could make it very special.
What's more, the new LiDAR map reveals it's not alone,
but one of a whole group of previously unknown pyramids
on this remote ridge.
This season, with the new treasure map,
Francisco is investigating them for the very first time.
And he's brought a whole team to start digging.
ALBERT: Francisco thinks the pyramids could be temples to local gods.
FRANCISCO: There might be offerings, so those will give us a better understanding of
the religion and the ritual practices.
ALBERT: While one of Francisco's excavation teams gets to work at the base of
the pyramid, he is called to the top where there's been a discovery.
FRANCISCO: Oh, my gosh,that's really interesting.
FRANCISCO: Oh, that's a lot of pottery.
WORKER: You can see.
FRANCISCO: There's more? WORKER: Yes.
FRANCISCO: Oh, yeah, I can see it.
So all this and then over there?
WORKER: Yes, it continues inside.
It's over there.
FRANCISCO: Oh, yeah, I can see it.
Oh, my gosh, it's the whole building that's covered in broken ceramics.
ALBERT: One of a whole group of remote pyramids, discovered by LiDAR,
is covered with thousands of pieces of broken ancient pottery.
Just like those in the caves of El Zotz.
FRANCISCO: These are undecorated jars.
That's what you have for just storing water.
Yeah. That's big water jugs.
Big orifice and the body of the jar will be like this.
There had to be a very good reason for the Maya to come here and break a lot of pots
on top of the pyramid and burn them.
You can see how they're all burnt.
They were offering water jars.
You know, water has a lot of symbolism.
It's all consistent.
So this is not a trash heap, it's a result of a major ritual.
ALBERT: This pottery wasn't broken by accident, it was purposefully sacrificed,
perhaps along with its valuable water.
It leaves Francisco in no doubt that this pyramid was once a place of Maya rituals
on a massive scale.
And down below there's been another find.
FRANCISCO: We found a stela right there.
ALBERT: A monumental stone, or stela, that could reveal carvings.
Archaeologist, Alex Tokovinine, is a world-leading expert on Maya glyphs.
If he can read any carvings it could reveal clues to the entire site.
The Maya were obsessive recorders of names, places and dates,
often found preserved on painted ceramics, and in monumental carvings.
But their glyph writing is still only partially understood,
and centuries of erosion can make it almost impossible to read,
even for experts like Alex.
ALEX: That should be the waist, right?
Unless it's all hieroglyphic,which I don't think.
FRANCISCO: No, no. No, no, it's not.
So there's definitely carving on the bottom of this monument.
And Alex is pretty much the only person who can read that,
and so he's taking a look at it.
So do you think it's a king?
ALEX: It's probably a king.
They would also probably get a stela of their own.
FRANCISCO: Yeah.
ALEX: Usually we don't get non-royals.
ALBERT: Alex wants to turn it over to see more.
But the stone is crumbling and turning it is a big risk.
FRANCISCO: Here's the plan.
Try to lift it and then flip it without, you know, just flipping it and scratching it.
I think we have enough people that we can just lift it.
The plan is to create a pillow basically with soft dirt
on which we can rest the monument,
without lifting it upright because
I'm afraid it's going to break into smaller pieces.
So we're just going to slideit on to its head basically and
then rest it on the edge of the excavation.
This is a delicate moment.
And literally it's make it or break it.
ALBERT: Any writing they can find could help explain
the pyramids and the sacrificed pottery.
ALBERT: If they can safely turn it.
It's nerve-wracking.
ALBERT: Francisco's monumental stone is turned and carvings appear.
Alex can make out glimpses of what might be a human figure.
ALEX: Sandals.
ALBERT: He thinks it could be a Maya king, but thepicture is incomplete.
ALEX: We barely have a half of the monument here.
The upper half is missing entirely.
Can it still be in situ or further up...
FRANCISCO: Well, unless that was it.
ALEX: No, it cannot be it. FRANCISCO: Cannot be it.
ALEX: It's still underneath us right there.
FRANCISCO: So it's underneath here?
ALEX: Yeah.
ALBERT: Then Alex spots some very different evidence of a dramatic past.
ALEX: Yeah, well, it's burnt I think.
That's what it is.
ALBERT: Just like the pottery on top of the pyramid,
it seems that this monument was once intentionally destroyed.
ALEX: The stone got heated and then flaked off, mostly likely because of heat.
Either there was a big bonfire in front of the monument,
which is possible, because they were burning offerings on an altar in front of it.
Or somebody really didn't like people who lived here and made a big bonfire
and broke this stone, and then burnt everything around it.
So it was a hostile act.
You see, good acts, ritual acts and hostile ritual acts are sometimes very similar in
terms of the kind of signature they leave on things.
It's very hard to tell.
ALBERT: Evening, and Francisco is back at his base camp near Witzna.
The rainy season is fast approaching, and Francisco can only
excavate for another four weeks.
FRANCISCO: We are really running against time,
because a month is not much time for this.
The plan is to now just breathe down their necks so they dig faster.
ALBERT: Back in Mexico, on the Yucatan peninsula
I'm exploring one of hundreds of miles of caves
deep beneath what was once Maya civilization.
Down here I can feel why the Maya believed these were portals to the underworld.
A place of gods and ancestors.
Guiding me is dive archaeologist, Guillermo de Anda.
As I search for evidence of ritual offerings,
amongst the debris more ancient pottery.
Guillermo records every find digitally, leaving the remains preserved in place.
In the dark silence, it almost feels as if the Maya are still living all around me.
It's a dangerous place.
But also incredibly thrilling.
And then emerging from the gloom,
a very different sort of offering.
A victim of Maya human sacrifice,
preserved in dark silence for centuries.
It's magical, but chilling.
Whoever this was, I must leave them behind.
My oxygen is running low and I want it make it back to the surface world.
The water is completely clear and so still,
you're just hovering through this unbelievable cathedral of limestone.
I felt like I was staring face-to-face with an ancient Mayan.
GUILLERMO: Yes, yes.
ALBERT: What do you think happened to that person?
ALBERT: In just a single dive I've encountered clear evidence of Maya rituals.
And with thousands of unmapped caves, finds like this are only the very beginning.
And the fact that this is one of maybe 6,000 cenotes in the Yucatan,
and that is only now beginning to be explored means that thisis an entire chapter to the
understanding of these people that is just now of course being opened.
ALBERT: The frontier of exploration, huh?
ALBERT: Back in northern Guatemala, it's early morning at Francisco's base camp,
three weeks after his excavations began.
He's preparing to head out to his newly discovered pyramids.
But the rains have arrived.
FRANCISCO: We're going to be in the back of the truck for two hours going to Witzna,
so we'll be like really wet by the time we get there.
It's the rainy season.
This way I don't sweat too much.
ALBERT: Francisco thinks he might have discovered a group of remote temples.
He's already found an enormous number of ritually destroyed water pots,
and a monumental stone depicting a king that appears to have been ritually burnt.
He's going to be joined by American archaeologist, Katie Ahern,
who's been digging nearby.
KATIE: So we had a bit of a late start today because of the rain,
but we'll be heading off shortly to the site.
ALBERT: The rains have only just begun and the tracks are already waterlogged.
KATIE: Now I look a little bit more authentic.
ALBERT: Katie has been excavating at a water pit,
at the base of the biggest of Francisco's pyramids.
And inside she has made an ominous discovery,
human remains.
KATIE: So here are the teeth.
We've got one with three roots.
FRANCISCO: Three roots on a molar?
That's a genetic trait for native Americans, so the Maya.
They have an incisor.
KATIE: Some baby teeth.
FRANCISCO: You have some milk teeth.
KATIE: Yeah.
FRANCISCO: This is from a child or it could be
different age children.
ALBERT: The discovery of a child's teeth in Katie's water pit is a mystery.
FRANCISCO: This is human remains that have been buried in to this underground chamber
that typically should be used to hold water.
So there's many questions here now at this point.
So her job is to excavate this entire set of artifacts
and maybe at the end we'll have some answers.
ALBERT: In the water pit, Katie has also found what she thinks is part of a pot.
FRANCISCO: Can I go in there... KATIE: Yes.
FRANCISCO: And have a look. Okay.
This is going to be a big, a big one to excavate.
KATIE: Yeah.
FRANCISCO: Katie? KATIE: Yeah?
FRANCISCO: I found something. I'm not sure it's a pot.
I think it could be the top of somebody's head.
KATIE: Huh!
ALBERT: What Katie thought was the base of a pot is, in fact, a human skull.
FRANCISCO: It looked like a bowl, but it's really it's got all these bumps.
You know, it's a small one, so it could be a young person, a child.
It was this way.
And the teeth probably came from just above it.
So everything is consistent with this not being a bowl, but being a decayed skull,
and this is just the back of it.
It could be a ritual burial or a sacrifice.
ALBERT: The lack of any other bones in the pit suggest to Katie that this
was no ordinary burial, but something much more gruesome.
KATIE: It is possible since we've only found the base of the skull that this individual
was sacrificed at a young age, maybe decapitated.
ALBERT: The Maya believed in sacrificing only what was precious to them.
And in Maya society the most precious of all were children.
FRANCISCO: Typically, as storage chambers they become
symbols for the underworld,
so they put offerings to the dead and to, you know,
the gods of the underworld in there.
So this could be one of those cases.
ALBERT: Until the LiDARsurvey, no-one had any ideathat there was anything built
on this remote jungle ridge.
But now, Francisco's newlydiscovered site at Witzna,
with its group of mystery pyramids,
is already yielding astonishing evidence of religious ceremonies
and gruesome ritual killings.
You found the skull of a child there?
FRANCISCO: Yes, a child sacrifice.
It's definitely evidence that this was an important ritual place.
That's exactly what we were hoping to find.
ALBERT: The Maya believed in sacrifice as a way to appease their gods.
I felt like I was staring face-to-face with an ancient Mayan.
FRANCISCO: Yes, yes.
ALBERT: Anything of value could be offered, from ceramic water jugs.
LAILA: It looks like it's the rim of a pot.
This is a phenomenal find.
ALBERT: To the most precious thing of all.
FRANCISCO: It could be a young person, a child.
ALBERT: Now thanks to the pioneering LiDAR treasure map...
Let's do it.
FRANCISCO: Wow.
ALBERT: Intrepid archaeologists are making incredible new discoveries...
ALEX: This is somebody's foot.
ALBERT: That are at last unlocking long lost secrets behind the mysterious rituals
and sacrifices of the ancient Maya.
Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.